44 - KSY

Koussay Benzetta, known as "KSY", is a 15-year-old thumbnail designer from Algeria who is currently in high school. He began his design journey at the age of 13, starting to learn Photoshop in March 2024. His introduction to the field came through his brother "kuinf", a video editor who gave him access to a free Adobe subscription so he could start learning.

His first client came from Discord in June 2024, and since then he has worked with creators and teams from across the Middle East, including oCMz, Mody10, Haroons, and many others. KSY is available for hire.

Twitter (X) → x.com/ksy_thumbnails
YTJobs → ytjobs.co/@ksyedit 
Instagram → instagram.com/ksy_edit

This project was for a creator named Nawaf, whom I worked with for the first time after being referred by one of my previous clients. Nawaf had recently launched a new YouTube channel and wanted his very first video to make a strong impression.

The video was titled "I Beat Sekiro in One Sitting... 14 Hours Without Stopping!" During our discussion, Nawaf explained that the thumbnail should clearly communicate the difficulty of the challenge and the exhaustion he experienced throughout the 14-hour gaming session.

Our main goal was to make viewers immediately understand the scale of the challenge. Nawaf wanted the thumbnail to emphasize his fatigue, frustration, and determination — turning his struggle into the key visual element of the design.

To gather inspiration, a variety of gaming thumbnails were researched across YouTube in different languages to explore a wider range of creative approaches. The references mainly focused on long gaming challenges and thumbnails that effectively conveyed exhaustion, pressure, and perseverance.

The starting assets included two main elements: the character and a monster. The monster asset, the Guardian Ape, was sourced from Google as it matched the dark and intense atmosphere required for the concept.

The character image was custom shot, with the subject posed holding a PlayStation controller while showing a shocked and fearful expression. This direction was intentional to emphasize emotion and reinforce the feeling of exhaustion and tension in the thumbnail.

This sketch was created as an initial planning stage to define the basic placement of the characters within the thumbnail composition. The main goal was to quickly visualize how Nawaf and the Guardian Ape would interact spatially before moving into the final design.

I started by blocking out the positions of both figures in a simple and rough manner, focusing only on their placement and relationship rather than any details. Nawaf was placed as the central subject, while the Guardian Ape was positioned closely beside him to establish direct interaction between the two elements.

The Guardian Ape was drawn with its hand resting on Nawaf’s shoulder to communicate their connection and to test how closely both characters should be positioned within the frame. The sketch also helped in evaluating balance and spacing between the main subject and the secondary element.

This rough layout served as a foundation for the final composition, allowing me to experiment with positioning before refining the design.

Using the rough sketch as a foundation, I began building the composition by focusing on the background first. I experimented with multiple generated assets from Freepik until I found elements that matched the overall concept. I then moved into Photoshop to refine the background, adjusting it to better fit the mood of the scene by darkening it and adding subtle effects to create depth and atmosphere.

For the subjects, I worked on both the Guardian Ape and Nawaf. I edited their appearance to better fit the narrative, including modifying Nawaf’s shirt to look torn and worn using Nano Banana 2. I also adjusted the Guardian Ape’s pose to ensure better composition and visual balance within the scene.

The lighting was one of the most important and enjoyable stages for me. I manually created the main lighting using Curves and Gradient Map adjustments, establishing a strong red light source coming from the right side of the background. To enhance realism, I combined this with additional Freepik elements to make the lighting feel more natural and integrated into the environment.

Finally, I added the finishing touch by introducing a front-facing screen light, simulating the glow of a display illuminating the characters. This was created using Nano Banana 2 and further refined in Photoshop through several iterations until it blended naturally with the rest of the lighting setup.

After these final adjustments, the editing process was complete, resulting in the final composition.

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